Is Defense key to this game?

[Joe Matt]

Originally Posted by Swampdude

I heard Adam on First cast knocking our concept of a big ramp and low scorer (expecting more from us - BTW I take no offense), Which I can understand. He expected us to bring back our 05 bot with the arm like 1345 has and the Exploding Minotaurs.

What do you think?

I applaud, no, embrace with open arms people who pick on Adam (I need someone in ATL to throw him in the fountain btw, PM me if your interested) along with others on the FIRSTcast team. Push us.

Anyway, my thoughts are quite simple. Too many teams have ramp bots, too many teams can get two robots on their backs and score. I wouldn't be surprised if we see ramp bots getting ontop of other ramp bots due to their proliferation. If you want to get picked for finals for a ramp (like in 2004 you would if you could hang like crazy), then I think you are mistaken. That's part one (and really doesn't answer your question at all, it's a personal rant.)

As for defense, I can see your argument quite well, but how does this NOT apply to any other game? Last year teams would shoot, get hit, and totally miss, sending balls missing. Teams could to the same with the tetras, with the multipliers, with ramp blocking, with goal stealing and moving (think 71), etc. Maybe it's the fact I'm not on a team and I don't have access to the field and build, so I don't see the writing on the wall, but I see defense and offense as being the same this year as any other. Heck, I think defense was more pronounced in last year's game due to the forced defense/offense rounds compared to this year.

I'm impressed by your massive ramp, which could be used to blot out the sun, and I really like that your taking a different route with this game, but I don't see how defense is more important or the key to this game. I think the key this year is torrid manipulation, just like in 2005 with the tetras.

[petek]

My prediction is that the rack score will be the deciding factor in the majority of matches. If that is the case, defense of the rack will be a big factor and teams will have to hang ringers quickly to keep from being defended and scoring robots need to be very manuverable (or immoveable) to generate big scores.

"Why will the rack score be deciding?" you ask? Well, I believe that, except for a few "hero" machines, getting robots off the ground is not going to be a walk in the park, that's why. Recall how many teams had a hard time getting up a big, fixed, ramp last year and how often teams wait until too late to try for it? Now look at the size of the ramp or lift that they're going to be trying to get on in the last few seconds of the game. I expect to see some "interesting" piles of robots in the end zones this year.

Guess we'll find out in 18 days.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by 65_Xero_Huskie

...if it has an arm, then it is technically not a defensive bot.

Arms can be used defensively. They can be very effective that way.

[Ian Curtis]

In 2005, while the rest of the FIRST world was off in offensive land, Triple Play was played defensively in Manchester, New Hampshire. With 2 robots the seventh seed shut down the second seeded alliance, and this was before the serpentine draft. The defense occured on half of the field, so there were six goals spread out all along the perimeter. The second seed scored 2 points, both dropped tetras in autonomous. A loading zone penalty cost the seventh seed the match, but there isn't an equivilent penalty in this game.

If you can get ahead early, and dedicate your two better drivetrains to pure defense, your opponent has limited options. They have to outscore you. Every robot they use to keep you from ramping, they can't ramp. Every robot they send to block you, they can't score with.

Could we be in for Stack Attack v2, where the name of the game is get ahead early, keep your opponent from scoring, and ramp?

[Brandon Holley]

1 more thing. A fairly obvious yogi-ism-like statement...If your playing defense your not scoring, you are most certainly attempting to keep them from scoring. I always look at the teams that are on einstein, year in and year out they approach the game with 1 basic approach: Score points. If you are forcing a team to play defense on you while you are trying to score youve already won the battle, now all your working on is the war.

[IndySam]

There are so many combinations of robots possible that strategy will be more important than ever this year. Each match will require knowledge of your alliance partners abilities and that of your opponents. I think this will be a very dynamic game and it will be totally different Saturday morning than the what’s played on Friday morning.

I am going to have to drive up to Western Michigan just so I can see the game played in the fifth week.

[Madison]

Some thoughts...

It seems that the time, effort and resources required to prevent or delay an opposing robot from scoring a ringer is staggeringly lower than those required to place it on the rack. As with any other game, there will be those teams that are markedly better at scoring ringers than most others, but on the whole I feel that we'll see low scoring matches through a majority of the season. I don't think that Champion-caliber teams will get to that level through defense alone, however.

It also appears as if a great number of folks are taking for granted the relative ease of accomplishing any of the tasks in this game. Just as scoring ringers will be more difficult than many project because of movement on the rack coupled with defense, getting robots 4" or 12" into the air is no small feat, either. In fact, doing it reliably and efficiently is more difficult than scoring ringers. I predict that some 75% of all lifts and ramps will not function in any meaningful capacity and will have sacrificed some resources that might have been better applied to a ringer scoring arm.

[Travis Hoffman]

Another related question - Can defense be key to this game IN AUTONOMOUS?

I say yes.

[JamesBrown]

Absolutely, if you have a fast drive train it isn't that tough, especially with two gears, speed across the field then slow it down before you make contact.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

We will have one of those Ramp/defender robots at Manchester.

Do I believe that defense alone will win? No. But I believe that defense will play a far bigger role than most believe. I believe that having at least 1 defensive robot will be critical to a winning alliance.

With active defense, robots and the rack obscuring vision, the pressure of time, and the difficult task of putting a ringer on the rack consistantly I believe that a great scorers can be limited to 3 scoring chances. That means a max of 48 points (3x3). A good ramp can score between 45 and 60 points each match.

I guess we'll see in Manchester if our assessment of the game strategy is right or not.

See Y'all in Manchester

[Donut]

What will be more important largely depends on the alliance you're facing, what your partners can do, and what time of year it is. Early in the season ramps will come out on top as most ringers are inaccurate and score few rings (meaning low ring bonuses). Get 3 good ringers together late in the season though, and we may see our first 300+ point match since 2001.

Defense will be important, but unless the other alliance has no lifting capability and you can guarantee both your partners 12" up, I don't think a purely defensive strategy will work. If they have a lifter and you have a lifter, your 60 offset, meaning your score comes down to... the rack.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Swampdude

I think defense is being underrated due to that fact that this scoring object is not big. 1 bot can block 3 legs just by going back and forth a couple feet, 2 could be blocked by never even moving. And if they choose to do this on the opponents side, they will be forced to come around and score on the opposite side of the field, which is being occupied by opposing scorers - and much harder to see what you're doing. The dynamics of this scoring object should be experimented with using live bot defense. Which is what we did. its possible to overreach a defender on the lower 2 levels but the high reachers will need to get in close to score, and may be able to push thier way in. But defense can also be played in keeping the oposing team from picking up the ringers in the first place.

I think you're undervaluing the importance of being able to reach over a defending bot.
In the following example, I'm going to lay out a few assumptions to make the problem simpler. The scoring bot is a 37"x27" bot, with an un-turreted arm projecting from the 37" dimension. The arm is 4" thick, is 83" long (center of rotation 3" from the rear of the robot) and therefor projects 49" when parallel to the ground from the front of the robot to the front of the end effector (about .3" from the maximum allowed value in this problem, using the hypotenuse 101.823" hypotenuse of the 72"x72" size allowment). The arm has a shoulder joint (and point of rotation) 45" off of the ground. The arm is designed to score the tubes parallel to the ground, and has a wrist joint to keep them parallel through-out the rotation of the arm. The end effector uses one of the sides of the tube to manipulate it, projecting the rest of the tube forward from the end of the end effector.
Now, we plug all these fancy numbers into a calculator, and figure out how far the robot can be away from the rack to score on each level, and we get these numbers back.
Low spider- 61.388"
Middle spider- 58.473"
Top spider- 36.868"
(For more info on how I calculated these number, please consult the illustration below demonstrating the example for the Top Spider, including clearance height for the entire spider foot, stinger, and bottom half of tube)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...titled-1-2.jpg

Beyond that, all of those reach numbers could be even greater if the robot had a higher point of rotation, and/or a turreted arm (allowing for a longer reach from the frame while remaining in the 72" x 72" size limitation). Given the same arm and base constraints (4" thick arm, 27"x37" base, with the center of rotation 3" away from the end of the 37" dimension) the "holy grail" arm design (360º turret, with a point of rotation at the height of the top spider) you could in fact score from ≈76" away without violating the 72"x72" rule. Note, this the first design not an easy design either (especially making an 83" long arm fit in the 48" starting height), and would probably either require a multi-jointed arm and/or a telescopic arm. But this shows that a 48" robot, with an un-turreted arm can score over the short dimension of a defender at all 3 levels of the rack.

Now, granted, it does not mean that these bots are undefendable, far from it. They still may be able to be pushed away, or rotated out of scoring position. Additionally, if the defending bot is tall enough (or has an arm that can extend high enough), they may be able to block the tube from being scored.

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by MOE

score quickly, play very good defense, and pick up "2 BOTS" in the end. You must be able to play the whole game because you never know who you have as team partners.

IMHO, I think you are quite mistaken. True, there are bots that will be able to do all of that, but the games are designed with 2 sets of teams in mind... this year its the bot lifters, and the tube placers.


Looking back to last year, my team tried to do everything... pick up off the ground, load from the top, shoot, sit down, and dump. It ended up that we failed miserably at shooting, and we weren't worth our weight in salt because of our limited abilities. Finally, when we specialized as a dumper, we were ranked high at our regional, and were picked at nats. Notice that the winning bot, 25, only loaded from the top and shot.

Bits of advice (I know many people have said this before):
Design yourself to be the most attractive alliance partner you possibly can be. Do one thing better than everyone else, and establish yourself as the best of that one thing. Trust me, it works.

[Greg Marra]

Having two alliance partners that can both lift two robots will not be redundant wastefully.

[Swampdude]

I'm not saying that defense alone can win a match, of coarse not. But I am saying that theres a key symbiotic relationship there that a scoring team will need each match. 2 offensive scoring allainces will just cancel each other out. Broken patterns won't add up to much. If an alliance can concentrate on holding 1 row, and all agree on that one row. then definitely attack it as fast as you can. But as soon as the other team sees this strategy they will also place on that row "Unless they are blocked".
lilavery, I know what you're saying, and yes the reach can be made, but good defense will most likley be played like a swinging gate about 3' away from the rack, and they just go back and forth making you go around. Now when 2 bots approach both with ringers and you're in the middle, you just jiggle back and forth quickly and they'll keep getting tapped, slowed and misaligned. Even the best capper will get slowed to a few caps. Also these long arms you're describing will bounce with vigor when extended to those lengths while being shoved around. And every team will be tempted to avoid that situation and look elsewhere for a cap, usually the sides or around to the opponents side. Then they contend with your other teammates, or even their very own teammates playing the same d on the other side. I see nothing but traffic jams.
Will the ramps win the day, no, its a combination of every scoring opportunity taken. A good capper is critical to a win. A good ramp is also critical to a win, and a good defender is critical to a win. But a match without defense (against a capping team) is just asking for a loss.
And Joe Matt - will a ramp get picked for alliance pairings? just a ramp, probably not. A good defensive ramp, yes. A top pick maybe not. A solid ramp that can score fast and play defense? deffinitely.